Cause Marketing

Some things go better together in threes; a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke, for instance. Or, Crosby, Stills and Nash. Or, Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Or, Groucho, Chico and Harpo. Or, Newton’s Laws of Motion. Or, faith, hope and charity. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that companies which face the consumer better do three things well: practice corporate social responsibility; have a strong green tint; and, engage in cause marketing. Time was when companies could pick one of the three and be fine. But the corporate environment has changed. Now companies like Starbucks have altered consumer expectations and demands of what corporate social responsibility means. Starbucks pays its employees fairly and offers benefits. It sells fair-trade coffee to benefit its farmer-suppliers. It works to lower its environmental footprint. And it does smart cause marketing. Like no other large company, Starbucks practices the Holy Trinity of corporate social responsibility. Starbucks, along with C...

On the heels of my posts on games and cause marketing in this space and at MediaPost.com , people have been asking me about how so-called 'gamification' can be used in cause marketing. Part of the answer has already been provided by Joe Waters (and others) in their coverage of Foursquare, which can be easily utilized in cause marketing. Zynga and its suite of games have done meaningful cause marketing, notably for disaster relief in Haiti and Japan. A handful of sites including Gamesthatgive.net (whose revenue model is based on advertising) offer donations to nonprofits based on how long you play standard faire. Plus 3, a social networking site for people increasing their physical fitness does much the same, albeit with fewer gamified elements. Big brands like Coke and General Mills have built games into their cause marketing strategies. Even still, gamification and cause marketing are still basically at the Atari stage in their co-development. Pong was the start of video/com...

Paul Fidrych left a promising career at Nike to start a business with his wife that takes old bike inner tubes and upcycles them into useful things like dog collars, chew toys and water dishes. All while benefiting the Humane Society chapter in Portland. The company is cleverly named Cycle Dog . To me that business model sounded like the much-heralded company TerraCycle, which upcycles juice pouches, for instance, into brightly-colored messenger bags. When I suggested that analogy, Paul politely told me that Cycle Dog positions itself as the leading US recycled pet supply company. Cycle Dog is laser-focused on the pet market. Listen now to this interview with Paul at the 2012 Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City as he talks about Cycle Dog's products, how they keep inner tubes out of the landfill, how they benefit the Humane Society, and how to crack open a cold one with man’s best friend.

If you're anything like me then you've watched the growth and development of Lance Armstrong's LIVESTRONG brand with a mixture of awe and envy. It started with the iconic yellow rubber bracelets, which since 2004 have generated more than $70 million for the Lance Armstrong Foundation . Over the arc of the bracelet's popularity they have been imitated, parodied and worn by vast array of non-biking celebrities, as well as the hoi polloi. All guided by the legendary marketers at Nike and its long-time agency Weiden+Kennedy . So popular and well-known was the yellow bracelet that there was a long while when it seemed like every fundraising brainstorming session I had with a charity somebody suggested a bracelet campaign, as if lightning could be caught in a bottle a second time. (In that way it's reminiscent of all the meetings I've been in when people suggested that all they needed to really get their pet project off the ground was an appearance on Oprah !) From...

Five or six years ago the term 'co-branding' was one of those hot marketing buzzwords. Nowadays co-branding is so commonplace as to be mundane. The point of co-branding is for brands to combine such that they create notable synergy. There are several kinds of co-branding, including cause marketing itself. This article, from Tiger Woods' previous sponsor , Accenture, names six : Promotional/Sponsorship. This is the category cause marketing falls under. Also Motorola's sponsorship of the National Football League. Ingredient. Betty Crocker brownie mix made with Hershey chocolate, or any of the Jack Daniels' dishes at TGI Fridays . Innovation Based. The Apple-Nike tie-up. Value-Chain , which is meant to bring new experiences to the consumer, not just another flavor. There are three varieties of value-chain co-branding: Product Service. Sea World and Southwest Airlines . Supplier-Retailer. Starbucks wifi service from AT&T. Alliance. Think FTD , or those all...